I got another wall scraped in the bedroom over the weekend and also tried out a new paint remover. Actually, I am not sure how new it is - but it is new to me.
The paint remover is Peel Away. You slather this stuff on the woodwork and then apply some paper that is kind of like trace paper over it. You wait overnight and voila: about half the paint came off the woodwork.
I can't say that I was too impressed. I was so excited when I saw this stuff on an episode of This Old House. I thought it would save me the hours of careful brushing and scraping of the woodwork. Unfortunately, it looks like I have some more work to do. If anyone has any pointers on how to use this stuff, please let me know
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The stuff did eat through 2 or 3 layers of paint in 24 hours but there is still no wood in sight. I am going to let the stuff dry and try another round. We'll see what happens. If I am still unsuccessful, I guess it is back to some other stripper.
Since I had time waiting for this stuff to not work, I took some time rubbing some of the woodwork in the hallway with denatured alcohol. I'll probably have to create another entry for this but the woodwork in our house is a mess. It has been poorly stripped, poorly stained, and poorly oiled. On top of this, the idiots that painted the house when they were getting ready to sell splashed paint everywhere. There is also a considerable amount of dirt and other stuff that needs to get cleaned off. Anyway, it looks like I may have some success cleaning everything with the denatured alcohol alone. After about an hour of rubbing, I cleaned about 2 square feet of woodwork. I am very happy with the results but it looks like there is a lot of work ahead on that front.
4 comments:
Here's a wallpaper removal tip from a former Oak Park-er and a current DIY-er.
Take a 5-in-1 and score several slashes in the wallpaper with the pointy edge so it looks like a tiger kicked the wallpaper's a**. You don't need to press real hard, just hard enough so you notice the marks in the wallpaper. I usually go across the wall in diagonal slashes in one direction and then back across the wall with diagonal slashes in the other diretion. Then fill up a garden pesticide sprayer with a few glugs of 409 and warm water. Places some towels on the floor so you don't get your floors wet and spray down the wallpaper until you can see that its soaking in. After its soaked in, let it sit for a minute or two and then scrape it off. It make take you a few attempts until you get the hang of how much water you'll need. If you've scored the wallpaper enough, you shouldn't see much of it roll down to the bottom of the wall. Just be cautious of the water so you don't expose your woodwork to too much water. Work in small areas until you feel comfortable trying a larger area. It worked wonders for us in a room that had 4 layers of wallpaper on the wall and 3 on the ceiling. Its fast and its great at getting all of the paper remnants off.
Hi there,
It sounds like had semi-decent Peel Away results, but you may not have used enough of it. Which version of the stuff did you use? I think there are seven variations, designated by numbers...Peel Away 6, Peel Away 7, etc.
We have used both Peel Away 6 and 7 in a lot of places in our house, including the gorgeous heart pine wide plank floors that had been painted over numerous times. I recommend Peel Away 7 because it's safer to work with and doesn't burn your hands but still strips paint very well. It worked like a charm, BUT you have to really slather it on there like frosting a cake, and then make sure that you have the entire surface covered completely with the paper. Also, smoothing out any air bubbles between the paper and the stripper helps a lot.
DON'T let it dry out!! It's a nightmare to get off once it's dried and it actually stops working when it's no longer wet.
I would not recommend using alcohol, either. Paint thinner as the final cleanup is much more effective and won't dry the wood as much as alcohol.
Hi Chris and Ileana,
My Mother used Redi Strip to take off some really aweful paint on my Great Grandmother's hutch. Mom loved it since you apply at night and scraped it off when it changed colors. It is also not toxic. The smell is not wonderful but it definately is not the toxic traditional paint stripper. I'm getting ready to used it on the boy's bunk bed.
Also what Dysb said above on removing wallpaper is exactly what we did with Mom and Dad's lovely 70's paper at their old house. Worked great. We scraped it off with a plastic spatula so we would not gouge the sheet rock (we only had one layer).
Good luck!
Jeanette
I am doing the same thing, peel away cost a lot and didn't seem to do the job like the brush on stripper, our biggest issue is actually an oil based layer at the very bottom. And our top molding on the doors and windows is the same as yours, we have gone through about 100 toothbrushes so far getting in those little crevices. I am using "zip strip", its about $30 for a gallon and you need really good ventilation but it eats through 7+ layers in minutes.
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